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8/20/17

Diamond: Isaac Newton's Favorite Dog Delays His Work

Although not all scholars agree, Diamond made history when inadvertently destroying important papers that delayed Isaac Newton's work.

Sir Isaac Newton, born on Christmas day in 1642, is credited with discovering the laws of gravity and motion. It is said Newton loved animals, and one of his best friends was his dog - a Pomeranian named Diamond. According to historical research by Stanley Coren (a highly respected professor), Newton got up from his desk and closed the door to his study to see who was knocking at his front door, leaving Diamond alone in the room where she laid next to the desk. The dog became excited when she heard an unfamiliar voice, began running around the room and bumped into the desk, knocking over a lit candle that set fire to the manuscript Newton was working on. Despite the loss of much work, the scientist lifted his beloved dog into his arms and said "O Diamond, Diamond, thou little knowest the damage thou hast done."

"It would be close to a full year before Newton would reconstruct the theory of gravity in full," wrote Coren in his book The Pawprints of History: Dogs in the Course of Human Events. "Thus an entire year of intellectual life and research, by one of the greatest scientific minds of his era, was lost due to the actions of a dog."